


Running Up That Hill (If I Could, I'd Make a Deal With God)

by misura



Category: Van Helsing (2004)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, Dreams, F/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:43:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"You're a tease, Van Helsing. Only kissing a woman when you think you're going to die."</i> (post-movie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Up That Hill (If I Could, I'd Make a Deal With God)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelus2hot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelus2hot/gifts).



> prompt: _Van Helsing/Anna, my eyes adored you_

_"A tease,"_ she tells him, tossing back her head, her lovely hair. He wants to reach for it, for her, to find out how it feels to bury his hands in that hair as he pulls her close to him.

_"You're a tease, Van Helsing. Only kissing a woman when you think you're going to die."_

_"There wasn't any time, before,"_ he wants to say, but doesn't, because he's not entirely sure if it is true, strictly speaking. There were opportunities, snatched hours of sleep he might have done without.

He thought they would have forever, after, right until the moment he thought they would never have any time at all. (It had been selfish, to kiss her. A dying man's last wish. Selfish.)

_"Yes,"_ he says, instead. _"I'm sorry."_

_"Get it right, next time,"_ she says. _"Don't wait so long."_

Pointless advice, if ever he's heard any. (Carl keeps telling him to be careful; the Cardinal keeps telling him to try not to break any priceless works of glass art. He keeps telling himself to keep his temper in check, to not mind what people who don't know him are saying about him.)

_"Yes,"_ he says, again. _"I will. I won't."_

There won't be a next time, of course. Not for her, not for him, not for them.

He wakes up, and she's still dead. Smiling down upon him from Heaven, last time he saw her, which is good to know and a comfort, no doubt, but still no change to the essence of the matter.

 

Carl worries for him, which is a mixed blessing. On one hand, he thinks Carl might be right to worry - and it's nice to know someone cares, someone who's known her, even.

On the other hand, some days, he feels that what he needs is a slap in the face and for someone to sternly tell him to get over and on with it already. He's got a job to do, and it's what she would have wanted. Carl's a good guy, but really not the slapping kind.

"It's not a sin, my son," the Cardinal tells him. "To love a woman, and to mourn her loss."

He hasn't told his eminence about the kiss. Or the dreams. "I killed her."

His eminence still lives in blessed ignorance of the whole werewolf thing. Carl's doing, and partially his, too, now. Getting bitten hadn't been his fault, but it had been stupid. Careless. An accident.

"Evil killed her, and God saw fit to call her soul to Him. If you must feel guilt over anything - "

"No," he says, too quickly. "No, that's fine. Thank you, father." He doesn't feel evil, but then, does true evil know itself as such?

Carl would know. He keeps telling himself this. Carl would know if he had crossed a line, if he had damned his soul by his actions.

 

They send him to Venice to wipe out a nest of sirens. Or possibly a clutch.

He's sharp. Focused. On the job. Dead, almost, when one of them turns out to be holed up on the second floor of a palazzo with a crossbow.

"Lucky," Carl says, still shivering and wringing salty water out of his habit.

"The thing was dead when I got there," he says. "That's not luck, Carl."

Carl pauses for a moment to consider. "It sure does sound a lot like luck."

"And I saw - I think I saw - " It's not thinking; he knows what he's seen. Pounding up the stairs, ready for trouble. Reaching the top floor to spot an open door, to catch a glimpse of someone running down the hall, her back to him. No sounds, though. A ghost, or possibly an illusion. A memory that refuses to let go, that _he_ refuses to let go.

"Yes?" Carl asks, curious and clueless and cold.

"Nothing," he says. "Let me get you another blanket."

 

_"You're welcome,"_ she says.

_"I didn't need your help,"_ he says. He loves her, might be going mad for the loving of her, but he's still a man, and he has his foolish pride to cling to. _"But thanks."_

She laughs, and he watches the pale skin of her throat, imagines his hands on her bare shoulders, the soft skin of her back. (There might be scars there, and stories he wants to hear told.)

_"Do you want me to leave?"_

The question requires no thought at all. _"No."_

Call it madness; call it an obsession. Be fair, and call it love.

_'It's not a sin to love a woman,'_ the Cardinal has said. It might still be madness, of course, and imprudent, and the reason he's still alive and breathing. That has to count for something.

_"Do you want me to stay?"_

_"Will I wake up?"_ he asks, because between love and duty, duty has always held the heavier weight. With her, too, of course. _"Carl might worry."_

_"You will,"_ she says.

He's not sure what she's offering, what he'd be agreeing to. He's almost entirely sure that she is real, or, if she's not, that she is only a figment of his own mind, given over to her memory. He might cheat himself. (She wouldn't.)

There are many cautionary tales about people making deals with demons and devils. Bargains for one's soul never end well. (It should be a given, he thinks, but apparently, many people disagree, Or perhaps there are simply a lot of people who like to make up stories about fools.)

He's never heard of anyone making a deal with an angel and living to regret it.

_"Well?"_ she asks.

He's always stood alone, more or less. Watched his own back, and sometimes Carl's, because Carl is a good guy and smart, but not always quite lucky enough to stay out of harm's way.

They'd make a formidable team, she and he. Would have made a formidable team.

_"Stay,"_ he says. _"Please."_

She grins at him. _"Turnabout's fair play, you know."_ Kisses him. Whispers: _"Just be glad I'm not as much of a tease as you are, Van Helsing."_

He wakes up with the taste of her still on his lips.

 

There is something to be said for friends who are not fools.

"Carl. It's all right."

"Oh." Carl doesn't quite look sheepish. He does put down the crucifix, even if that's quite probably only so he can reach for the holy water. "I see. Or actually, I don't."

"Think of me as Van Helsing's personal guardian angel," Anna says.

"Ah." Carl fusses about with a looking glass. Points it in her direction and visibly relaxes. "Ah. Well, that's very good. He certainly needs one, every now and then."

 

An angel, a priest and a knight walk into a vampire bar.

Nobody laughs.


End file.
